Theophanes the Greek

Theophanes - Icon from the Deësis Tier - c. 1399 - Egg tempera on wood, height 210 cm - Cathedral of the Annunciation, Kremlin, MoscowTheophanes the Greek (in Russian Feofan Grek) (ca. 1340 - ca. 1410) was a painter from Constantinople, active mainly in Russia. He is said to have been a prolific decorator of churches, but only one fresco cycle survives that is certainly from his own hand, in the church of the Transfiguration at Novgorod (1378). His is one of the outstanding monuments of Russian medieval art, showing the highly personal version of the Byzantine style that Theophanes brought to Russia; his figures are vigorous and strongly characterized, and his brushwork has an almost impressionistic freedom and dash. Deësis (Greek, "entreaty") in Eastern Orthodox art is the representation of Christ flanked by the intercessory figures of the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist and other saints. The icon represented in the painting featured here is the Archangel Michael.

Comments

[peter]

It now seems possible that Theophanes the Greek, was just an alias, and that he wasn't Greek but a senior member of the Genoese 'Fregoso' family, Pietro. Born in 1339, and trained as a lawyer and an artist, he had a shadowy but astounding career first in the family trade with the Orient, then naval, and then founding financial, artistic, slave trading and ecclesiastical dynasties. Russia was just his bolt hole when things were too hot for him elsewhere.

Indeed, he only appears in Russia when the bitter opponents of the family - the Adornos - were in power in Genoa, and when it was desperately unsafe for him to stay in any of the Genoese colonies around the Mediterranean or Black Sea. In 1370 Gabriele Adorno was in power in Genoa, and it is said Theophanes moved to Novgorod, but then that same year Gabriele was overthrown, and Pietro's uncle Domenico was elected Doge in his place. Pietro would benefit well from this, and so vanished from Russia as Theophanes, and in 1371, (now as Pietro) became the Podeste of Novi. In 1373, now promoted to Admiral of the Genoese Fleet, he seized Famagusta, (the fabulously wealthy staging post at the start/finish of the Silk Road to the Orient), and thus became perhaps the richest man in Europe, and giving him the resources to vastly expand his empire.

But in 1378 his uncle was overthrown, and exiled along with Pietro, and sure enough, the exact same year Theophanes turns up again in Novgorod (painting this image here), and probably spent several years more there. Around 1380 it's thought he might have also painted 'Our Lady of the Don'. In 1383, though, the Adornos were ousted, Genoa was again safe for the Fregosos, and in 1384, Pietro was made General Captain of Genoa, and as Theophanes he disappeared again.

But no sooner was he back than, again in 1384 there was another coup, and another Adorno in power in Genoa. So, the following year, 1385, Theophanes most reliably reappeared in Moscow. The Adornos were thrown out in 1390, and then, by 1393, Pietro was back in Genoa, indeed he was made Doge of the city, but stayed only one day before giving the title to someone else.

The Adornos were back again in 1394, and in 1395 Theophanes popped up again in Moscow where he painted the church of the Nativity of Mary in the Kremlin... Then in 1396, realising they about to be overthrown again, the Adornos give the keys of the city to the King of France, expecting to be made the governors... Theophanes is under a double threat now, from the Adornos and the Valois King of France, and stays in Russia, in 1399 to work on the Archangel Cathedral, and then in 1405 he joins with with Rublev and Prokhor of Gorodets for a grander project.

All very circumstantial, but the clinch, though, is that although no one until now noticed it, he signed his work: both as 'Pietro Fregoso', and another alias associated with him: 'Xacobo 4', a name that appears tucked away in many paintings. He even makes a clandestine appearance in Leonardo's Last Supper, but that is more Dan Brown's neck of the woods than mine!. But this isn't the big news.

The big news is in the names of the dynasties and great names of history that he founded: Medici, Pazzi, Strozzi, van Eyck, della Quercia, della Rovere, Brunelleschi and Marchionni. And of course, who his colleagues Andrei Rublev and Prokhor of Gorodets really were... And who his mum and dad were, but this comment is becoming a book, sorry! Shame on me - I'll stop here!